In a stampable sheet wherein a paper or nonwoven fabric comprising carbon fibers is impregnated with a resin, although the mechanical properties (mechanical properties of the molded article) are excellent, flowability at the time of molding is low and moldability is poor. This is because the carbon fibers, which are reinforcing fibers, are dispersed and therefore a stress is hard to be concentrated and, while the reinforcing effect due to the carbon fibers is sufficiently exhibited, the carbon fibers are crossed with respect to each other to thereby restrict their movements. Therefore, the carbon fibers become hard to be moved (for example, the press molding described in JP-A-2010-235779).
Further, sometimes a carding machine is used to prepare a carbon fiber sheet used for a stampable sheet. However, in a nonwoven fabric prepared by ordinary carding, because fibers are likely to be oriented along the rotational direction of the cylinder roll of the carding machine and, consequently, the anisotropy becomes high, it is often required to perform a complex lamination such as quasi-isotropic lamination to obtain a component requiring an isotropy.
Therefore, with regard to an objective of a stampable sheet to secure excellent flowability at the time of molding to realize a satisfactory moldability while securing high mechanical properties of a molded article, it is difficult to achieve the objective by using a conventional stampable sheet applied with no particular device.
Accordingly, in view of the above-described circumstances, it could be helpful to provide a stampable sheet making it possible for a molded article to exhibit high mechanical properties with an excellent isotropy, and making it possible to easily mold a desired CFRP with a satisfactory moldability as a result of excellent flowability.